I know people are excited about the niew 80-400 nikkor, but frankly, I am impresssed with the older one. I lost one out in Vegas, but.... housekeeping was honest, turns out, it was left in my room!
Meantime, I am off to another trip in a couple weeks that demands a long tele (think topical birds!), so, I ordered / bought another used one,, hah, but at the end of the trip, I managed to get my original back! sweet,,
laughs, but now I have two of these beasts, the second one is a beaut. I doupt if it was every used more than 4-5 times, has that new lens feel,,
Course, I have to sell one, not sure which, the less new one with the wonderful Kirk colar (which I added because it was missing one), or the almost virgin one. Of course, I could switch the kirk for the nikon, and sell the older one.. yup,, that is most likely what I am going to do.
I gave a large tip to housecleaning of that old hotel.. They deserve being honest (of course, I called like 5 times, and on the 5th time,,, it "showed" up, but hey,, works for me). Lucky, the hotel was only an 45 minutes outside of Vegas, so it was easy for me to pick up.
here is a snap with the lens
http://nikonites.com/d800/12087-vegas-d800-trip-2.html
I should have done focus stacking, and I could have gotten the foreground a bit sharper, I had the focal plane at the dunes, but, I think the sharpness is pretty fine for a 80-400 zoom.
I also took some shots of some wild horses post sunset, and even at 200 yards, zoom out to 400, the lens produced a nice image of the wild horse (I'll post).
So,, here is the point, will the new re-design produce better images, well, I hope so,, how much better, marginal, but you can pick up a clean use one for 600-800 dollars, while a new one is up at 2K.
Either way, this is a wonderfully flexible lens that does not weigh a ton.
Meantime, I am off to another trip in a couple weeks that demands a long tele (think topical birds!), so, I ordered / bought another used one,, hah, but at the end of the trip, I managed to get my original back! sweet,,
laughs, but now I have two of these beasts, the second one is a beaut. I doupt if it was every used more than 4-5 times, has that new lens feel,,
Course, I have to sell one, not sure which, the less new one with the wonderful Kirk colar (which I added because it was missing one), or the almost virgin one. Of course, I could switch the kirk for the nikon, and sell the older one.. yup,, that is most likely what I am going to do.
I gave a large tip to housecleaning of that old hotel.. They deserve being honest (of course, I called like 5 times, and on the 5th time,,, it "showed" up, but hey,, works for me). Lucky, the hotel was only an 45 minutes outside of Vegas, so it was easy for me to pick up.
here is a snap with the lens
http://nikonites.com/d800/12087-vegas-d800-trip-2.html
I should have done focus stacking, and I could have gotten the foreground a bit sharper, I had the focal plane at the dunes, but, I think the sharpness is pretty fine for a 80-400 zoom.
I also took some shots of some wild horses post sunset, and even at 200 yards, zoom out to 400, the lens produced a nice image of the wild horse (I'll post).
So,, here is the point, will the new re-design produce better images, well, I hope so,, how much better, marginal, but you can pick up a clean use one for 600-800 dollars, while a new one is up at 2K.
Either way, this is a wonderfully flexible lens that does not weigh a ton.